Life and times of an amateur athlete and my adventures as a weekend warrior - including my successful completion of Ironman Canada Subaru 2009

Monday, August 3, 2009

Taper time....

27 days and counting - the panic attacks are starting to come and i am sure they will increase in number and intensity s ground zero approaches. Mostly I am just doing what I have been doing for the past 8 months - taking it one day - one workout at a time. It seems to have worked so far so why change it. I have officially moved into the bubble - will explain more later...

Mostly I am focusing on the positive thoughts and visualization. I honestly believe that I have done everything I can in preparation. Am I ready? I believe so. My longest ride was this past Sunday - just shy of 6 hours. I headed out from home early so I could go out to Iona and ride the headwinds before meeting coach and the group for our speed/interval workout. The interval workout was great - my legs were burning and coach pushed me harder than ever - we did 30 sec, 30 sec, 1 min, 1min, 2/2, 3/3, 4,4 and back down same intervals. Brutal but necessary. As coach said to ride fast you need to ride fast - same thing I tell my clinic members - to run fast you have to practice running fast - aka SPEED WORK. We then stopped for coffee/snack and they went home and I set off for the final 2.5 hours of my workout. I decided I would ride UBC down to the base of West 4th and back along Spanish banks back up UBC hill and back to Marine and Cypress and then back home to Burnaby. The ride was hard, I tweaked my hip on Friday night and so it has been throbbing but then I thought about a talk I had heard and the speaker had said there will be dark times the trick to remember is that they will pass - it worked and then I was riding up UBC hill - I decided to visualize Yellow Lake in my mind and then about half way I realized - wow high cadence, heart rate under control, breathing good and feeling pretty good YES! Plus I passed people and I had been out just under 4 hours at this time so I was very happy.

The rest of the ride went well got home and went out for a 15 minute run. I am not going to lie I did an internal battle for the last 15 min of the ride about whether to run or not but in the end it came down to this it is IRONMAN and if you can't do 15 min how do you expect to do 5 hours!?!?! Run went well but hip was some angry with me thank god for physio.

Next weekend should be the last race before the big show - one last time trial - this one 40 km. Coach likes time trials because she says it is all about form and there is no BS it is just you and the bike nothing to hide behind kind of like Ironman. She says that it is all you and how you use your bike - don't go out too fast, accelerate throughout the ride, think about the course, remember form, form, form just like Ironman - poor form and you will hurt more than you need to - go out to fast and you will not have what you need for the end or the run and you can't hide - it is just you - no drafting, no group riding just you and form, form, form. I will shoot for an hour - 15 minutes - but that will be dependent on the weather and the course overall.

So the bubble you ask - I have some would call a history - through no fault of my own - I MIGHT ADD - of having incidents happen to me just before races - usually I still get to race day but it would just be easier to not have to go through it. There was the Squirrel/pinecone incident- where I sprained my ankle seven days out from the Kelowna half, the Intestinal virus again one week out - liquid diet up to race day, the derailer blow out incident, the faulty quick release incident, with the most serious being the bike versus car incident last fall one week before the Kelowna full. The basic rules of the bubble if you think it is a bad idea then stop and don't do it that means no crazy trail runs, white water rafting, zip treking, yada , yada. PRetty much work, workout, eat and sleep - not much different from the previous 9 months....

Oh and before I forget here is a shout-out for Special K - who not only broke 2:15 but busted through my prediction that she would do a sub-2:10 half marathon - she did 2:02 - that's right - girlfriend owned it just like I knew she would - super proud!

1 comment:

wow, thanks for the shout out lady! it's totally thanks to you and your training that i was able to run that course this weekend -- not to mention your faith in me! i've got the same faith in you baby -- penticton is going to be rocked!

About Me

I am an IRONMAN. I set this blog up to share a little about my journey to Ironman but mostly to introduce you to some truly fabulous women I run and train with and possibly inspire a few of you to get off the couch and do something. My friends and I come from all spectrum's of life and all age groups some of us are faster than others, some of us are beginners, some are in their 20's, some in their 50's, some only run 10km, some do Ultra's (50km and over) but the one thing we all have in common is that we like an adventure, a challenge, to push the envelope, and to have a whole lot of fun while we do it. Oh and we never, EVER unless it is physically impossible quit! It is not about the time or where we placed it is about finishing what we started, supporting each other and inspiring each other to be all we can be, looking at task and saying How Bad can it Be? and then learning that it was pretty bad but we survived and then finding the next event or adventure and doing it all over again. Hope you enjoy the read. Peace out